Harpo Beginners Book 2 Stephen Dunstone

A complete approach for beginner harpists Learn pieces by ear, Learn how to read music, Learn how to transpose pieces into different keys Downloadable audiotracks for many of the pieces Despite the little picture of my lever harp on the previous page, ALL the music in the Harpo Beginners books is suitable for pupils playing on either lever harps or pedal harps. However, because a lot more beginners start off on lever harps, all my references to playing in different keys are accompanied by lever-change instructions. But if you’re learning on a pedal harp, don’t despair: your teacher will translate all those instructions into “pedal-speak”, and give you a pedal version of my “Castle of Keys” (which appears on page 44). But it’s worth learning what to do on a lever harp as well, because there will quite likely be times when you find yourself having to play one, perhaps in an ensemble, and you wouldn’t want to be left out…   Buy this music now £14.00 +p&p

Artist Profile and catalogue of works - Stephen Dunstone

Harpo Beginner’s Book 1, Harpo Beginner’s Book 2 & Harpo Not Quite Beginners “The three books of the Harpo Beginners series offer pupils a wonderfully rich learning experience, deftly and imaginatively weaving together the business of playing by ear, reading music, and using harmony in a way that’s simple, great fun, and accessible to both quick and slow learners. They’re the definitive books for young beginner harpists – not just good, but indispensable!” Ruth Faber

Harpo Beginners Book 2
Stephen Dunstone

Contents

1 Floating Feathers / Greensleeves

2-3 Dotted crotchets / Mélancolie / …dotty pieces / Skye Boat Song

4 Who Let the Snakes Out? / Hisstory Lesson

5 Taking a Rest / Resisting Arrest / Arm Restling / Scarborough Fair

6 Bright and Breezy

7 Tristesse / My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean

8 The Seahorse Song

9 Thistledown

10 Triads / Harmony / Mary Had A Little Lamb

11 Beautiful Bird

12 Skaters' Waltz

13 Viennese Waltz / Oh Dear, What Can The Matter Be?

14 Inversions / Broken Chords

15 Viennese Frog

16 The Roundabout / Mary's Sister Had A Lamb, Too

17 In the Swing / Licking the Honey Spoon / Lavender's Blue / Sur le Pont d'Avignon

18 F major / Prairie Waltz / Prairie Frog / Prairie Dogs

19 Wallowing

20 Moaning / Waltzing in the Rain

21 Two Left Feet / Little Bo Parp / Auld Lang Syne

22 Spanish Girl / A minor

23 Spanish Waltz / Spanish Frog / Slapperknocker

24 D minor / Russian Waltz / Russian Frog / Minka

25 Rosa's Dollar

26 Quaver Rests

27 Get Drest! / Most Imprest / Robin Redbrest

28 The Frozen Lake

29 March of the Cossacks

30 Caterpillars in C major

31 Caterpillars in A minor, F major and D minor / Early One Morning

32 Grey Matter Matters

33 Brain Waltz / The Ash Grove

34 Short and Sweet

35 Syncopation / The Kitchen Sync

36 Pentagroove / Learning Latin

37 Tubby's Waltz / Tubby's Tango

38 - 39 Chicken Ballet

40 No More Rum / Caribbean Frog

41 Special FX / Nice One!

42 - 43 Morning Dew

44 The Castle of Keys

45 Relative Majors and Minors

46 - 47 Italian Terms

48 - 49 Lyrics to the songs with lyrics…

50 All the harp string

Titles in bold are "Ear Pieces" (see Read Me below)

Harpo Beginners Book 2
Stephen Dunstone

Read Me...
(and get your teacher to read me too)

As you’ll no doubt remember my saying at the beginning of Book 1, the purpose of the Harpo Beginners books is not just to help you learn to play the harp, but to help you become a good musician at the same time. Use the books well, and by the end you’ll be able to read music confidently, play by ear, understand elementary harmony, transpose simple pieces into different keys, and have a large repertoire of enjoyable pieces that you can play from memory.

Here in Book 2 you’ll again find “ABC pieces” to be played from memory (NOT read from the page – the notation is there purely to glance back at if you get stuck); again you’ll find plenty of “Earpieces” with no notation at all; again you’ll find lots of pieces written in “proper” notation, increasing in difficulty through the book, and audiotracks for nearly everything – and again you’ll find a wealth of fun and inspiring pieces to play.

What’s different is that in this book I take you to a new level of expertise by helping you understand and use simple harmony. Some people think that knowing about harmony is a completely pointless academic extra. WRONG! Understanding harmony is a core part of becoming a versatile musician who is better able to make music with other people, and it helps you get a deeper and stronger emotional appreciation of the music you play. It also helps you learn new pieces more quickly, because you can see whole groups of notes as single “chunks of knowledge” rather than having to identify hundreds of seemingly random notes individually.

To help you develop your abilities to play increasingly complex rhythms, learn more difficult pieces by ear, become confident at reading a wider ranger of notes, and now understand and use harmonic concepts, I’ve chosen to delay the introduction of playing with all your fingers till you can approach it with the proper attention in Harpo Not Quite Beginners, as a lot of pupils genuinely do find it quite awkward. With the right pieces, structured and introduced in the right way, using all your fingers needn’t be too difficult, but it does take care, thought and time, and it’s crucial that you don’t have too much to think about at once, otherwise you go into mental overload, your brain melts*, and you end up doing everything badly. But of course if you’re a multi-tasking gold medallist, please feel free to start using Harpo Not Quite Beginners alongside Harpo Beginners. Just not instead of Harpo Beginners…

And don’t forget the indispensable Racing Training, crammed with over 500 graded exercises to help develop your reading skills. Again, have fun playing!

 

*OK, not literally…

Title:	Harpo Beginners Book 2
Composer:	Stephen Dunstone
Instrumentation:	Lever or Pedal Harp
Level:	Beginner
Format:	A4 Ring Bound
Weight:	255gm
ISMN:	979-0-57046-330-5
Our Ref:	SD1059
Publisher:	Creighton's Collection
Printer/Distributor:	Creighton's Collection
Edition/Year:	2019
Origin:	UK

---